For police, fire, and other civil service careers, formal events and ceremonies often require the donning of formal uniforms including the display of any commendations obtained in the line of duty. This is even more prevalent in the military where formal uniform apparel is more commonly worn. Such uniforms typically include a pair of pants, dress shirt, and covering jacket. The display of any medals, ribbons, or badges may be strictly regulated in certain situations. In particular, regulations exists pertaining to the spacing and positioning of the commendations on the uniform. Depending on the number of commendations, it can take a considerable amount of time to correctly comply with the various specifications and regulations on the placement and spacing of the commendations. Incorrect placement is unacceptable, particularly in military applications, but performing this process repeatedly each time dress formals are worn would consume a significant amount of time. In addition, different occasions call for different sets of medals to be worn. Also, the addition of new awards may necessitate an entirely different arrangement or spacing requirement.
In addition to the spacing and time concerns, the typical medals include a pin for piercing the shirt or dress jacket. A clamping mechanism worn on the inside of the jacket or shirt secures the medals to the garment. These securing devices may cause discomfort to the wearer and damage the garment.
One crude device frequently used to located the awards is a piece of leather or cardboard secured to the inside of the jacket or shirt. However, both leather and cardboard degrade over time and the holes do not retain a precise placement location as hole size become larger or otherwise loses its shape. Cardboard has a particularly limited life due to its paper construction. In addition, the pins on the back of the ribbons and medals can pierce the cardboard or leather in any location and are not restricted to certain locations on the back piece. Thus, precise placement using these materials remains difficult.
One device purportedly used to secure ribbons and the like can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,805 to Haegley. In that patent, a securing device located on the inside of a uniform garment includes clasps encased within a soft foam material for repeated insertion by a pin. However, Haegley's device requires that the clasps be permanently fixed in the foam material so adjustment is precluded for accommodating different sizes of awards. Further, soft foam material will erode from repeated uses limiting the effectiveness of the device.
Accordingly, it has been demonstrated that there is a need in the art for an apparatus that can simply and quickly mount awards such as medals and ribbons to a uniform in a precise but variable manner that does not result in discomfort to the bearer of the awards and yields a reliable and timesaving procedure for arranging the awards on a uniform.